Noragami Aragato Season Two is a two-disc set that includes all 13 episodes of the second season of Noragami. The release includes both an English dub and the Japanese audio with English subtitles.
Noragami Aragato Season Two
English Publisher: FUNimation Entertainment
Format: Blu-ray
Release Date: July 30, 2019
Noragami Aragato continues to follow Yato, a minor god who doesn’t have a shrine. He, his Regalia named Yukine, and a living Phantom named Hiyori find themselves involved with more adventures that include the other gods.
There are two story arcs that make up Noragami Aragoto. The first involves Bishamon, the god of combat. She is still haunted by her past where Yato killed off all of her Regalia expect for Kazuma. Yukine makes friends with Suzuha, one of Bishamon’s Regalia, but Suzuha is used by another one of Bishamon’s Regalia in order to launch his plot to overthrow Bishamon. It turns out that Yato ends up being the key to stop this renegade Regalia’s plan.
The second story arc focuses on Ebisu, one of the Seven Gods of Fortune. It turns out that he uses Phantoms as his Regalia, and this causes problems for the gods and the balance of the world. Yato, meanwhile, is forced by Nora and his “father” to return to his darker side as a God of Calamity. Ebisu’s story and Yato’s story turn out to be intertwined.
I originally watched Noragami Aragato when it was streaming as a simulcast on FUNimation’s streaming service. It was already a different viewing experience this time around because I could watch the series in larger chunks than the one episode per week that I originally saw them in. Also, I only had a break of a few days between the first and second season, instead of the roughly year-and-a-half between the end of the first season and the beginning of the second season that I had the first time I watched this series. Because of that, it made starting Noragami Aragato much easier to get into right away this time, since I didn’t have to spend time trying to remember characters and facts from the first season.
Overall, I still think that Noragami Aragoto is a stronger series than the first Noragami anime. Bishamon had a great story arc, which lasted for roughly half of the season. The other half of the season was devoted to Ebisu’s arc. The Ebisu arc is also strong and keeps the audience’s interest. And both story arcs had very compelling emotional aspects to them, which made the viewer care about the characters and what was happening to them. I also liked how Bishamon continued to evolve as a character during Ebisu’s arc. During Ebisu’s arc, Hiyori also went through some evolution as a character, and what happens to her during that arc ultimately helps to make her connection with Yato and Yukine even stronger in the long run.
At the end of the final episode, there was a teaser scene that revealed a very shocking piece of information to the viewer. It was something that I hadn’t expected, anyway. And the manner that this scene was done in made it clear that there was more to the story. Unfortunately, it’s been a little over six years since the final episode of Noragami Aragato aired, and there has yet to be another season to be released for Noragami. Which is unfortunate, because not only is there that teaser scene, but there are still at least a couple of loose plot threads hanging at the end of this season. At this point, I think the only way to find out how this story continues is to read the Noragami: Stray God manga, which is the original source material for this anime series.
The Blu-ray video for this set has 1080p High Definition 16:9 (HD Native), while the audio includes Dolby TrueHD: English 5.1 and Dolby TrueHD: Japanese 2.0. I had no complaints about either the video or the audio quality for this release.
When it comes to the bonus features, they are only included on the second disc. The box only plays up the two English voice actor commentaries, but there’s also original Japanese trailers, two versions of the textless opening, three versions of the textless closing, and trailers for releases that FUNimation Entertainment was promoting at the time this Blu-ray set was released. My only gripe with the extras is wondering why there were two versions of the textless opening included. Watching them both back-to-back, I couldn’t see any noticeable differenced in the animation. At least with the first two textless endings, I could see one noticeable change in the animation.
Even with my minor gripe with the bonus features, I would still recommend Noragami Aragato Season Two to fans of the Noragami anime who want to have all of the available episodes of the franchise in their anime home video library.
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